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This school has been part of a cluster that has been working together for three years with seven schools. The school has completed three rounds of review, and through review has developed coaching skills and a group trained as peer reviewers. A key benefit of SPP has been creating closer relationships with more open and honest conversations. School improvement workshops for improving standards in each school have been considered beneficial for all schools participating, not just the school being subject to review.
A key challenge for this cluster, due to the number of schools, is timetabling visits. A response to this has been to ensure depth in what is being reviewed rather than quick fixes. Schools have focused on tracking and assessment, Welsh language and other areas. The headteacher reflected that working in existing partnerships helped. It is also considered helpful that all new starts at the school are inducted into SPP straight away, so it becomes part of common practice.
New starts are trained as peer reviewers or facilitators immediately to ensure there is adequate resource for participating. There were initial fears that SPP would add to workload, “but now it is seamless, and hasn’t become considered part of our workload”.
“But now it is seamless, and hasn’t become considered part of our workload.”Headteacher from the cluster
The headteacher reflected that it is important for schools to see you as being supportive and not there to criticise and to not associate it with normal experiences of inspections. SPP was considered to “perfectly complement the new system changes in Wales” and the goal of becoming a self-improving system: “there is a push for independent learners and being responsible – this mirrors that and support it”. SPP provides a good foundation for Estyn visits, as schools are able to clearly articulate what is being done in the goal of school improvement.
Greater funding was indicated as an area that could enhance SPP further, though schools have found a way to keep it going: “when it started we had a grant, and now we can’t do without it [SPP] so we find the money…For something to stick for three years is amazing itself and this has really stuck with out cluster”.